To Build a Home: Part I

I had someone tell me the other day that he was holding onto a relationship with a former girlfriend because he had built something with her. I asked if he loved her and he said no, but yet he still wanted to be with her. Why? Because to him, our society has proven "love" to be something that comes and goes... 

It grows and is great, but inevitably it fades and changes. People feel strong feelings for each other and then get married, but in our world it seems as if those feelings, that "love," always changes.

 Naturally, my friend didn’t want to have a relationship defined by this unpredictability and instability that we call love.

But unfortunately, people grow apart, they change, they "fall out of love," and then instead of building together, they break what they have and tear it down. 

Foundations have been laid, maybe even walls established, but people base it off a love that changes, and they give up when their feelings are gone and instead tear down what they had started to establish together. 

In some cases, the two have already built much together... everything, in fact, - a house, a family with children, a purpose, a life, jobs...

and yet on selfish whims because of changing feelings or personal dissatisfaction, they throw it all away, rip it to pieces, and watch what they have built crumble to the ground in front of them.

What are we doing???

What is our society doing to each other, to our children?

What are we leaving for the next generation?

We were put on this earth with the order to BUILD - to be fruitful, to increase, to multiply, to fill, to subdue - to create society, culture, families, and to live in an abundant relationship with our Creator. But yet what are we doing?

We are tearing down,

We are destroying,

We are breaking.

Instead of looking past feelings and our own selfish desires, we are giving up on our families - adding to the brokenness that is already so prevalent in this world.

We are breaking up families.

We are tearing apart relationships.

We are causing broken hearts. 

But the Creator is calling us back to His heart.

Things in this world have been broken, yet His only desire is for them to be made whole. Our hearts are broken... because we have been tearing down rather than building... but God's sincere heart intention for His people is to restore the broken places and bring wholeness and healing to what has been torn apart.

Jesus did not come to give us rules,

to tell us what to do

to condemn and judge us when we inevitably fall short of a long list of commands.

No...

He came to give us life, and life abundant.

He doesn't say we have to do this, this, and that, and be like this, that, and that...

and then get mad when we fail.

He comes instead to restore, to teach us to build, to call us to be people of character, people of strength and wisdom.

To be continued...